latest Palaeolithic discoveries and research, from mammoths to handaxes

Menu

Tag Archives: dating

Horizons of volcanic tephra were repeatedly deposited across Mediterranean and Eastern Europe throughout the Pleistocene, providing a distinct chronological marker. One of these main tephra events, the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI), took place around the time of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Its influence on Neanderthal and early modern human populations and cultural changes has…

The discovery and excavation of Palaeolithic sites with vast quantities of mammoth material is a source of both wonder and considerable academic debate. In particular, the large Upper Palaeolithic localities from eastern Europe with structures made from mammoth bones. However, despite a long history of research the actual process of how these remains were acquired…

The cave of Chauvet (Southeastern France) became instantly famous after its discovery in 1994, now exactly 20 years ago. 425 painted and engraved figures were found in the cave, with a wide variety of themes and all with an excellent state of preservation. It became a key site for recent studies of parietal art, especially…

The Uluzzian is a stone tool industry found stratigraphically between the late Mousterian and the early Upper Palaeolithic at sites in Italy and Greece. It’s a flake-based industry with lunates, crescent-shaped backed pieces, as type fossil. Alongside these lithic types bone points, perforated shell beads and mineral pigments are found. Only at one site, Cavallo…

At the site of Kocabaş (southwest Turkey) a fragmentary cranium was recovered in 2002 from a travertine quarry alongside faunal remains. The skull has been assigned to Homo erectus and its morphology seems to be intermediate between the skulls from Dmanisi (Georgie, 1.8mya) and Zhoukoudian (China, 0.8mya). So far age determinations of the travertines at…

The presence of cultural patterns among artefact types has been a key topic among Palaeolithic archaeologists. Schemes based on typology and linear progression are now generally abandoned, in favor of process-driven explanations, incorporating raw material, tool use and resharpening. This is also the case for the British record, where especially river gravels have delivered a…

The site of Sungir (Russia) is well-known for its rich burials of 8 individuals, associated with spears made of mammoth ivory, ivory beads and perforated fox teeth. In the past, the radiocarbon dating of material from this site has proven extremely challenging. So far, three labs obtained direct AMS dates from the skeletal material but…